It serves to millions of consumers a day and is known for its motto “lower prices everyday. ” For the last few years however, there has been the controversy of whether Wal-Mart is truly good for the American economy or not. On one hand people believe Wal-Mart is good for the economy because it saves the average consumer money due to the low priced products. Along with being an easy one stop shop where everything a person could possibly need is found there. Aside from the low prices and convenience, Wal-Mart is bad for the American economy.
In early December of 2005 a poll was commissioned by Wakeup Wal-Mart, a union-funded group that has been pressuring Wal-Mart to raise employee wages and benefit’s the poll found that fifty six percent of Americans believe that Wal-Mart is no good for the economy (Majority Says Wal-Mart Bad For America).
Their reasons for believing so were because of the vast majority of products Wal-Mart imports from China, the way they treat their employees, and the fact that whenever a Wal-Mart is built small businesses around it will suffer severely.
According to an article in China Business Weekly, seventy percent of all commodities sold in Wal-Mart are made in China. In fact, if Wal-Mart was an individual economy it would rank at China’s eighth biggest trading partner, ahead of Russia, Australia, and Canada (The Real Wal-Mart Facts).
In the beginning of Wal-Mart’s existence, founder Sam Walton was a firm believer in “Made in America”, “Bring it home to the USA”, and the “Buy America” program. In an interview with Jon Lehman, previous store manager of Wal-Mart for 17 years, he recollects a time with Walton.
The Essay on How The Economy Affects Gas Prices
How the Economy affects Gas Prices Any type of economy has certain rules it plays by. These rules are the government activity in the countrys economy, the countrys infrastructure (including roads, railways, telecommunication lines, and oil/gas pipes), the economic type of system and the mentality of people. In most modern economies, the infrastructure usually is maintained by the government at the ...
He explained how Walton “was all about going to factories in America that were closing like a flannel-making factory… they couldn’t make flannel shirts in America as cheaply as they could in China, so the factory closed. Three hundred something jobs were down. Sam went to that owner of that manufacturer and said: “Look, if you’ll make flannel shirts just for Wal-Mart exclusively for the next three years, I’ll retoot your plant. I’ll give you a loan, get your business up and going, and you just sell them to us”.
And that’s what Sam was all about. ” After his unfortunate death April of 92’ the pride that Wal-Mart he had once taken in selling American made products quickly declined. Although Wal-Mart is greatly benefiting from their imports, they are ignoring the labor laws of the United States. The products imported from China are made in factories in China. In 2004, National Labor Committee reported on a Chinese leather goods factory that supplied Wal-Mart. Half of the workforce in the factory earned no wages at all.
The workers worked instead to pay off debts for training, food, and lodging (There is no place for Today‘s Wal-Mart in a Sustainable Society).
Also reported by the China Labor Watch in December 2005, workers making toys for Wal-Mart in China’s Guangdong Province reported that they would have to meet a quota of painting 8,900 toy pieces in order to earn their daily wage of $3. 45. If this quota was not met, however, the worker would only earn a daily wage of $1. 23 (The Real Wal-Mart Facts).
In Wal-Mart’s 2006 Annual Report an estimated 60 lawsuits were filed against Wal-Mart due to low wages, and work with no pay. In the year 2005, in order for a single parent to meet just basic needs for him/her and the child would cost approximately $28,000 a year. The average associates wage at Wal-Mart was only $17,000. With a corporation such a Wal-Mart, whom makes around $10 billion in profit a year, one would think they could afford to higher the pay given to their employees.
Wal-Mart employees often complain about low pay, but another big problem in the Wal-Mart workforce is that many workers do not get paid at all for working. In the year 2000, an internal Wal-Mart audit of one week took place. In that one week the audit found 60,767 missed breaks, 15,705 lost meal times, and 1,371 instances of minors working too late during school hours, or too many hours a day (Suits Say Wal-Mart Forces Workers to Toil Off the Clock).
The Essay on Unfair Business Ethics for the Employees of Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart is a superstore that has facilities all over the world. Wal-Mart is known as the friendly neighbor superstore. But until recently Wal-Mart has found it's self not so friendly and is battling in unfair labor practices.An employee working for the Wal-Mart in New York has accused the world's top retailer of unfair labor practices. The suit, which seeks class action status, was filed in a New ...
health insurance has been another controversy in the debates of Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart employees, especially full-time employees should get health care. The opposition to this is that “ aside from Starbucks no large employer gives health insurance to part time employees due to high costs of health care” (Is Walmart Bad For The Economy).
However compared with other large companies Wal-Mart covers only 43% of employees with health insurance as oppose to the average 66% that other large companies cover. If Wal-Mart were to reach the average coverage rate, they would be covering an additional 320,000 employees.
Wal-Mart employees are paid poorly if at all for their work and are rarely covered with health insurance. The Wal-Mart corporation states that 90% of it’s workers have health insurance. In actuality, the 90% who are covered, around 50% of those are insured because of their spouses employer, who, by the way, may be a union employer. Wal-Mart is an anti-union corporation. The first ever unionized Wal-Mart was in Quebec, Canada. It was quickly shut down once is became unionized however, and this is not the only case like this.
Many attempts have been made to change Wal-Mart into a union employer, but all attempts have failed. Wal-Mart is often portrayed as the big bad wolf of companies. It’s accused of harming smaller “mom and pop” businesses. But it is in fact worse then that. Wal-Mart has the power to control. As early as 1989, Wal-Mart put dozens of local shops out of business in Indepence, Iowa as soon as it was built. Before the Wal-Mart was built those stores had been thriving for over a 100 years, but they were not forced to fold and close their doors.
Not only is Wal-Mart responsible for hundreds of small shops for closing but also for the fall of large companies. This is the case for the Lovable Company. Although the Lovable company had once been the sixth largest in it’s field, which was apparel, the loss of Wal-Mart as a customer forced the company to close it’s doors within the years of the loss. Garson, the last president of Lovable Company stated that “Wal-Mart has a big pencil, they have such awesome purchasing power that they write their own ticket.
The Term Paper on Wal Mart Ethics Company Employees Management
... Wal-Mart's personnel polices are directed to keep wages cheap. Wal-Mart does this so they can maximize their profits. The health benefits for a Wal-Mart employee ... track with some drastic changes? Wal-Mart is facing numerous unfair labor practices disputes. The company is facing a large suit from over one ...
If they don’t like your prices, they’ll go vertical and do it themselves or they’ll find someone that will meet their terms. ” Wal-Mart has become such a huge corporation with so much power, it is only destructive to the economy. Their push for lower and lower costs only contribute to unemployment in the United States. They sent many major manufacturing jobs overseas and driven down wages not only here but abroad as well. Businesses are forced to close their doors, unemployment is rising, and Wal-Mart just sits back and watches the economy collapse as it reaps all the benefits.
